Selwyn himself did not belong to the Tractarians, but he admired them from afar, and he was influenced to a great extent by the same spirit. The key to much of the subsequent history of the New Zealand Church may be found in a spectacle which might be seen at Kerikeri in the year after the bishop's arrival. At this place was a large and solid stone building, which the missionaries used as a store: here, in an upstairs apartment, the bishop arranged his library. Passing among "bales of blankets, iron pots, rusty rat-traps and saws," he loved to enter his retreat, in which there was nothing "colonial," but where he could feast his eyes on "ancient folios of Commentators, Councils, and Annals of the Church,"--St. Augustine "standing up like a tower," and St. Irenaeus "with the largest margin that I ever saw." Not that Selwyn spent much of his time over these treasures--his life was too fully occupied for that--but he knew pretty well what they contained, and he shaped his policy accordingly. The missionaries had been men of one book: Selwyn was a man of many books. He knew his Bible, it is true, with the intimate "textual" knowledge of the most old-fashioned divine, and he had a marvellous skill in calling up the appropriate verse on all occasions. But he interpreted it in the light of Christian antiquity. Pearson on the Creed, with its patristic citations, was ever at his hand. This, with his Bible and his Prayer Book, constituted his working theological equipment. Every doctrine, every argument, every rule, was clearly conceived and arranged in his mind, ready for immediate use. Upon the shelves of the Kerikeri library reposed one volume of special interest. This was Marsden's copy of Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity," which had been publicly presented to the bishop on his arrival in Sydney. Selwyn already knew his Hooker almost by heart, but the gift stood as a token of the spiritual relationship which united these two great men. Yet their "polity" was not altogether the same. In his appreciation of the "catholic" aspect of the Church's heritage, the bishop failed to realise the value of the local catholicity which had been evolved by Marsden and his fellow workers. He could find no place for the Wesleyan mission in his scheme. Always courteous to its leaders, he yet could not continue the old communion with them. From this change of attitude the logical Maoris drew conclusions which soon brought sadness to the bishop himself. Up and down the country, but especially in Taranaki, where the spheres of influence met, the converts were violently perturbed. A savage burst of sectarian fury broke out. Each small community was divided against itself, and its Christianity, like that of the Corinthians, evaporated in bitter party feeling. In one _pa_ a high fence was built through the midst to divide the adherents of "Weteri" (Wesley) from those of "Hahi" (the Church).